I have reinstalled b3 (DVD AMD64) 6 times now, for various issues. Notwithstanding those, one of the more enduring ones is network share based media - it has been exactly the same on every install so far.

As soon as the core comes up after install/setup (dual NIC as designed) it immediately detects my Windows PC on the Internal network via the DHCP plugin, identifies it as a File Server and offers up all my shares. I choose the correct one (it is an anonymous access share, no permissions), tell it it can use it automatically and with the LMCE structure. That file structure is already in that share with all my media on it.

I can see updatemedia running, and if I leave it long enough my media starts appearing, or I can force it using the resync option. Either way, I get my media browsable in the media browser, as you would expect, and can play it without any difficulty. But at some point very shortly after this it all disappears! When I try to do a sync again, I can see in the output window that the reason for this is the core thinks the share is offline (says "Device is offline, skipping this file").

However, it definitely isn't offline - not only can I browse the media on the share and play it within the KDE desktop, but if I use the Search function in LMCE's media browser screen, I can find it all and play it there, within LMCE!

I have noticed in various places (logs) and on the console sometimes, errors about CIFS VFS, with return codes like -13, -111, etc. So I think something is going on with the CIFS connection that causes updatemedia and the media browser to think the share is offline and thus not present it, even though it clearly is online.

Have tried rebooting both machines many times, and swapping the NICs (they are completely different NICs, one a PCI the other onboard) both the cables and the swap interfaces option in the admin console. I get the network back, can still browse and play, and ping, but LMCE still thinks it is offline. BTW, one of the many rebuilds was with the CD version and the result was exactly the same - at first it can see the media, displays and plays it, but then it goes off line and never comes back.

I have tried forcibly removing the devices that represent the server and the share, flushing the DHCP lease, then readding the Windows PC to the network and letting the same LMCE installation rediscover and add it (on a new IP address), again it finds and adds the media initially, but then a short time later, declares it offline.

I have logged a Mantis on this, but it doesn't seem to be progressing - at least it has been declared a duplicate of another issue that was purely about mounting internal drives, ie. no CIFS involved.

Has anybody seen this before? Any suggestions on what might be causing it?

Actually, I just noticed this yesterday with one of my shares. The online checkbox on the admin site won't stayed checked and yes, when the share appears offline to LMCE, the media doesn't display in media browser, but it is searchable. If you delete the share and add it again, it appears online, until your next reboot. I have 7 shares, and it is always the last share of the bunch, thats is the last share in alphabetical order. I actually played around with it yesterday and it appears to be staying online even after a reboot. I will provide more details of the steps I took later, but I don't even know right now if it actually fixed the problem.

Fantastic, Lon22 - PLEASE let me know ANYTHING you may find.... I only have one share, so by default it is the last I may have a go at creating a "later" (alphabetically) share, and redo the whole thing to see if I get the same thing.

So I don't have to rebuild (a 7th time!) can anyone tell me the exact steps to root out a discovered share and server, and then let it rediscover? And do I have to manually delete the media entries in the db from the admin console or are they "children" objects and get deleted automatically with the device?

I have removed servers/shares before, but the last time I did it, I just deleted the server device but it didn't rediscover it with the next DHCP request. My understanding is that the plugin just greps the DHCP log output for a lease request/ack, then a script takes the IP/MAC and determines if it is in the db already. If not, it adds it and kicks off the pnp scripts. For some reason this just wouldn't work last time. I even deleted the DHPC lease entry in the dhcp config file, and that didn't seem to do anything. Eventually, it just kicked off again, but it was far from clear what I did to achieve this! So any pointers on the right process would be greatly appreciated!

Colin I am seeing similar issues with my NAS drive and My MD not booting or just partially booting. Generally after its has been idle.(Been messing with some of the wiring but not that much.)

I wonder if the nic is going to sleep on us and not waking propely. I am using the onboard nic for the internal net.Would make since based on my symptoms any. Will check power settings in bios tommorow.

Lon22 - just completely reinstalled after ensuring I had a second share on my PC. The main share is called "Media" the second, dummy share is called "Xyz" to ensure it is second.

PNP added the PC as usual, and I told it to ignore all the other shares except these two. Within minutes I was in media sync - it could see all my files and folders, but they were not yet syncd into the database - in other words it was displaying them by scanning the network share. I hit resync, and it displays all the media data it knows first, then as it has done every time so far, the second process seems to be the bit where it syncs the data into the data base, and again it says the device is offline, skipping... So it looks like the second share workaround isn't working for me.... damn!

tkmedia - I have tried both onboard and PCI NICs with exactly the same behaviour within mins of powering on the box. Moreover, I can play media in Kaffine on the desktop at the same time as hitting resync and it telling me the device is offline! I don't believe there is anything wrong with the NICs or network at all - it seems to be something at the CIFS protocol level is telling updatemedia and media browser that the share is offline, but in a way that doesn't effect the KDE desktop's access to the shares....

Does anyone know what protocol KDE desktop uses when you map to a Windows share in the Network folder? Is it possibly using a different protocol than updatemedia/media browser or different port (CIFS vs SMB) that would explain why it works fine in KDE but not in LMCE?

Zaerc - thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure - the shares are open access/anonymous with open write permissions, plus as I say, the core was initially able to connect and catalogue all my media with no difficulty, and is able to play it as long as I explicitly search for the filename. Again, does this suggest that the MediaPlugin or Xine are using a different network access protocol than updatemedia or the browser? Actually, they may not be using a different protocol at all, perhaps just a different signal/response code from the automount system - but I have no idea how that all works, just that it exists!

I checked my security event log (I enabled it the other day) on the Windows box and there are thousands of successful authentication events from DCEROUTER/Guest, and no failures.

Anyway, I will try the suggestion out - I'm assuming the idea is to create a Windows account with that username and password?

I did this, and even added it to the administrators group. Rebooted the Windows machine and the core - still no media

Just confirmed that even on a share that had no media on the drive or in the database, I added some media to it, and resync'd - and even on this first scan it finds the media by FILENAME! In the right folders, but in the same black output window after detailing the files it had JUST FOUND it goes on to say that the device is offline: (more below this snippet)

I have also highlighted where it talks about the mountpoint. I don't understand what it is doing when it says it has mapped the file from device 25->35 and 26->36 .... 35 and 36 are the actual devices under /mnt/devices, and if I CD into those directories I can see all my media!!

Arrrgghh! I don't understand what is wrong.... everything says the shares are mounted and available except something in LMCE....

Can anyone explain the automounting process and if there is anything in there that might be causing LMCE to think the drives are not mounted when they clearly are? Or perhaps trying to access the media through a different protocol than directly off the drive mounts (which might explain why I get the CIFS errors)

I'm not sure exactly what fixed my problem, but its been two days now and the share has stayed online through many reboots. I think the last share thing could be coincidental. The only thing I can remember doing is setting a username and password for the share. The username and password is the same I use to log into the fileserver. I set this, eventhough the share doesn't require a password. I also made the share's partition active. After all the steps I took, after the first boot it was still offline, but it seemed to eventually stay online. Sorry I can be of more help. I know how much of a pain that is.

Even more bizarre! I tried adding another PC with another share just to eliminate the PC itself as an issue. Added the server and share, and resync'd with that, same result... But to connect it, I had to unplug the original PC's network cable as I am short of patch leads. And noticed that the admin site seems to remove the entry "Windows Share: Xyz [36]..." blah when it isn't actually on the network! So the web site itself, by implication is saying that the PC is normally online and available because I can always see these folders and click into them right down to the individual files (in the Media File Sync screen), but when I sync it says they are offline...

I tried running a sync from the Windows share level (I normally just run it against a small subfolder as there is a lot of media) - this took a lot longer and I could see it analysing the files, with the regular coloured lines saying things like # PlutoMediaFile STARTED, etc

When I go to the media browser in LMCE itself, whilst it was doing this, I can see some files appearing and playable. Because this sync took so long due to all the files, I was able to play with it a little bit. This is the second time I have noticed this strange behaviour - even though it had scanned dozens of media files, only 2 or 3 appeared in the video media browser. I could play them, but once I had played one and went back into the media browser, that one had disappeared and been replaced with another one! If I didn't play them, the same 3 stayed there. Play it... replaced again!

Now I have rebooted, and still have a couple of media files "stuck" in the orbiter's video media browser and can play them, but the rest are "offline"

I removed that PC and its share in the admin console. tinkered with DHCP and refreshed on the PC NIC to get LMCE to rediscover and add the PC and share again. This time, because I know that Linux can be picky about case, and reshared it as media (rather than Media). I have XP in workgroup mode, so you don't get to set permissions on the share, its anonymous automatically.

Then after it was added, I went in and hit resync from the top of the share (ie in .../video/Windows Share:media [40]) - it worked and added all my media and I could browse and play it just fine. Hit resync again just to make sure that it still thought of it as online - yep, no problem. Did the same with my music, again no problem, online and can see and play it.

Unfortunately, LMCE had a big hiccup whilst completing the audio resync, and hard locked. Responded to nothing, so I had to reboot - this always seems to be the death of it! Rebooted, and once again all my media is offline again.... back to square one!!

Can someone who knows the protocols and mechanisms for marking media/devices offline please give me a hand? Been at this for 2 weeks now and have rebuilt 9 times from DVD and CD, tried different media, different networking, different NICs, different PC shares, tickering with the configurations in the admin console, reading the log files, etc, etc, etc but everytime it is the exact same result. KDE (through Dolphin), command line (/mnt/devices/36.. ) and mediaplugin/xine in LMCE can all see and play the media with no difficulty. Updatemedia and whatever marks devices/media online/offline can see it all at first and adds it all to the database, but then decides it is offline and I can't access it anymore through the orbiter's browser. And that is the way it stays from then on unless I delete the server and share and rediscover it or completely rebuild....

After reading through logs and learning a little about autofs/automount, and finally finding where Pluto does this from - I found the /etc/auto.PlutoStorageDevices script, and noticed in there 2 options:#CIFS_FileSystem="pluto-fuse-smb"CIFS_FileSystem="cifs"

I have been convinced that the issue is something to do with the way LMCE mounts the file system using CIFS, and that in some way KDE and other things mount it differently - hence it works for one and not the other.

I figured that the commented line must be a legacy Pluto way of doing it, and the CIFS is a newer way.

So I commented out the CIFS line and removed the comment on the other line, rebooted and hey presto all my media is back again....